The Avatari (24 page)

‘
Khong
, you are not progressing well at all.’

‘Bo – he never smiles,’ Ashton said, changing the subject and indicating the boy.

‘He misses his father and the other boys in his school call him names.’ Xuan twirled a finger around a strand of her black hair, looking contemplative. ‘He has to learn to be tough.’

‘But he’s just a child!’ Ashton protested. ‘Why don’t you go to the States? I mean, for his sake?’

‘Will the boys in school there not call him names too?’ There was sadness in her voice. ‘No, Colonel, this is my country and perhaps in my small way, I must do my bit in these troubled times.
Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.
Perhaps we will be able to accomplish big things with little steps.’

‘We?’

She chose not to elaborate.

The head priest had come out of the temple carrying incense sticks. He was a wrinkled old man in a red robe, with a tonsured head and gaps in his teeth. He approached them as they sat on the bench. Xuan rose to her feet and bowed to him. The priest responded with a blessing which he bestowed with a gesture of his hand. Ashton saw that Xuan and the old man were known to each other. They chatted happily in a Vietnamese that was spoken too quickly for him to understand. Soon enough, however, it dawned on him that they were talking about him.

‘He was asking if you were a Buddhist,’ Xuan told Ashton, turning to him. ‘I said no, but that you were very interested in Buddhism.’

Ashton smiled and nodded at the priest with folded hands. Suddenly, on an impulse, he turned to Xuan.

‘Can I ask the priest something? It’s been troubling me for a while.’

‘Of course!’ she replied, then couldn’t help asking, ‘What is it?’ There was concern in her eyes.

‘Probably nothing,’ Ashton replied, unsure as to whether he should go on. Then deciding to tell them about it, he blurted out, ‘It’ a recurring dream. It comes to me every night.’

‘A dream? What kind of dream?’ Xuan asked, perplexed.

‘That I am walking alone on a mountain trail. I am dressed in a robe and have a stick in my hand. There is the sound of gongs and horns in the distance, but I cannot see anyone. I am always alone, walking up that winding mountain path.’

She looked at him in silence for some time, then turned and spoke rapidly to the priest whose expression underwent no change as he listened to her. The old man approached Ashton, placed his palm on the Englishman’s head and blessed him. Before walking away, he murmured something to Xuan in their own language.

‘What did he say?’ Ashton asked her.

‘That you – how do you say – will fulfil a great destiny.’

‘He said that? Well, not much of that has happened till now,’ Ashton told her, staring at his hands.

‘It will, Monsieur Ashton, if that is the way it is to be,’ Xuan said firmly. ‘You take everything so seriously. Enough of this! Do you not know how to keep a girl amused?
Fais tomber la chemise!
Let your hair down!’

She took his hand in hers and rested her head on his shoulder, which felt very nice.

When they met on Saturday, Bo Hai was not around.

‘He wanted to play with his friend,’ Xuan said shortly.

From that day on, she and Ashton continued to visit the temple, but also spent time by the river and in cafés, holding hands and talking. They were both, he felt, snatching moments of reprieve from the desperation around them. But for her, at least, there was the excuse of a war around the corner.

‘Do you miss her?’ Xuan asked him one day, while they were sitting by the river watching the boats.

‘Who?’ he asked reluctantly, though he knew whom she meant.

Ashton had told Xuan about it very briefly. He wished she hadn’t asked, though.

‘Hilda.’

‘It happens,’ he said, shortly.

He was trying to ward off memories of that fateful Christmas party after which he had insisted on driving back home; of the crash and the hospital matron gently breaking the news of death – Hilda’s and that of their unborn child.

Xuan sensed his hurt and, in a gesture that was almost childlike, put her arms around him and kissed him. Shakily, he put his arms around her too and kissed her back. A low whistle made them break off. Ashton looked up to see a group of boys grinning at them. He waved at them.

‘What was that?’ he asked Xuan.

‘Men,’ she replied, then looking at him archly, said in mock indignation, ‘always, you want to know!’

When he reached the Embassy on the morning of 11 June, Ashton was surprised to find that the ambassador, who normally sauntered in at 11 a.m., was already in. The Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, had immolated himself to register his protest against the government. There was the usual mad rush of updates and meetings at the Embassy. Ashton and Xuan had planned to meet that day and he had to call her to cancel. Though she didn’t say much, Ashton sensed that she was not herself. He knew he had to meet her.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he told Dennis after lunch.

‘Are you insane?’ his colleague said, aghast. ‘Even Julius has called home and asked for his dinner and pyjamas to be sent over. And that, as you know, is like the Second Coming.’ He paused as he noticed the expression on Ashton’s face. ‘Oh, all right!’ he said finally. ‘I’ll cover for yer, you dumb ninny! Just stop dribbling and score, will yer?’

Xuan met him in the market, her face drawn. They walked down the street, dodging the coolies who were jogging down from the opposite end, baskets of fish balanced on poles slung over their shoulders, and ducked into the café they frequented. They chose their table and sat for a while in silence. It was an open secret that the café owner, a short, fat, balding man who perpetually wiped his brow with the apron he wore, had managed to fob off the moral police who had discreetly asked to be paid in US dollars. He was fond of Xuan and, in a strange way, fiercely protective about her – something, Henry Ashton had realized, almost everyone in the marketplace was, in the same way that people care about the first blossoms breaking out on the common, knowing quite well they will never survive the inevitable onslaught of sleet.

He tried to draw Xuan out now and help her unburden herself. He knew what was on her mind.

‘The government is calling it an act of terrorism,’ he said, as they sipped anise.

‘Do not talk of the government;
il a des cornes
!’

‘You know I don’t understand the French part,’ Ashton said with a smile, ‘but I take it that it doesn’t mean something nice.’

‘Then it is better that we stick to learning languages, monsieur, and talk less of the government!’

Despite her obvious anger and distress, he couldn’t help noticing the way her eyes flashed and colour suffused her cheeks, but wisely refrained from comment. The moment was too charged, too fraught with tension.

‘And what do
your
people think?’ she asked after a moment.

‘Our people think it’s a desperate waste,’ he said with his usual honesty, then regretted it immediately.

‘What do your people
know
about us?’ she half-shouted.

The few customers at the other tables turned to look at them curiously.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ashton murmured, trying to apologize, but she was in no mood to listen.

‘Do you know that the death of the Revered One was an act of patriotism, a message to President Diem – one of
our
people – given by one of
our
people in a language
both
of them understood? That having given everything else for the good of the people, the Revered One was finally giving the last thing he had – his life – for them? He was
not
fighting the government. He was entreating them, advising them, as was required of a person of his stature.’

Xuan was crying now. Ashton leaned forward and held her gently by the shoulders, but she shrugged him off angrily and rose to her feet.

‘Go back to your dogs and your pipe and the house you have in the village, Monsieur le Colonel! Leave us to do what we must,’ she said, before almost running out of the café.

The people sitting at the other tables were now staring at him and their expressions bordered on hostility. Ashton took a deep breath. He picked up his glass, then put it down. After some time, the owner approached him and sat down in the chair across the table. He said nothing, but motioned to the waiter who brought him a glass of wine. He downed it in a gulp.

‘Go after her, monsieur,’ the man said to Ashton in English.

He looked at the owner in surprise. The man had never addressed him before.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

The man nodded and then said softly, tiredly, almost to himself, ‘It is perhaps best to pursue love in the time of war.’

CHAPTER 14

Louangphrabang

1963

The next morning, Ashton woke up to the incessant buzz of the phone; it was the Embassy line. It was 4.30 a.m. He was accustomed to waking up at five anyway, so when he picked up the receiver, he was fairly lucid and coherent.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Good morning, sir. Harris here.’

A sergeant of the Royal Marines, Harris was the commander of the small detachment detailed for the Embassy’s security. Ashton had found him to be an able NCO who spoke little. They got along well.

‘Good morning, Sergeant,’ Ashton responded.

‘There’s a woman who wants to see you, sir. A local. She’s at the gate now. The man on duty told her to come back after nine, but she won’t budge. Won’t give her name or the reason for her wanting to see you either.’

That was a good NCO. Harris had had to choose between waking him up and not disturbing him at all. And he had made the right decision.

‘I’ll be right down,’ Ashton said, putting down the receiver.

He reached for his dressing gown, then decided to get dressed. He put on a shirt and a pair of trousers and went down to the gate. Waiting for him on the other side of the grille was Xuan’s mother, bundled up in a wrap that partially covered her
ao dai
. The
cyclo
she had arrived in was parked on one side. Ashton had never quite caught her name, but they had met often enough when she babysat Bo Hai at the library. She spoke no English, but the duty detail had roused one of the local staff, who lived in the compound, to act as interpreter.

From what the interpreter told him, Ashton understood that the police had picked up Xuan. They had given no reasons. And no, she hadn’t been handcuffed – just bundled into a van and driven off. He murmured a few words of reassurance to Xuan’s mother and handed her a ten-dollar note from his wallet before sending her off. Then he picked up the internal phone and rang Dennis who was officiating as first secretary while Pinnet was on leave. That, Ashton thought, was damn lucky.

Dennis picked up on the second ring, which was unusual, since he normally woke up at eight.

‘Dennis… ’ Ashton began.

The other man cut him short. ‘I know,’ he said grumpily. ‘There’s a lot of crap, mate, and I think you had better get down to my room right away. And be a good chap and tell your boy to send us some tea. My bugger probably won’t wake up before seven.’

Dennis was looking dishevelled, but cheerful, when Ashton met him.

‘The undersecretary to the Ministry of the Interior called,’ Dennis told him. ‘Went on about espionage and violation of the diplomatic code and so on and so forth. I told him to bugger off. But then their minister got through to Julius. They say they have photographs of you and Xuan. Julius was on the line with me, just before you rang.’

‘Oh, hell!’

‘What are you so worried about? They’ll just tell you to buzz off.
Persona non grata
and all that tripe and that’s the end of it. We, of course, will deny the whole thing.’ He took a deep breath and exluded. ‘If you ask me, I should do the same – get a girl, carry on and bingo! They send me out of this hole.’

‘What about Xuan?’

‘Big trouble there, mate. They are charging her with being part of an underground Buddhist student movement. Subversion against the State. The works.’

‘We’ve got to get her out,’ Ashton said urgently.

‘Do talk sense, old chap! Do you think that’s even remotely possible?’ Dennis took another sip of his tea and stole a quick look at Ashton. ‘Look, she knew the score when she was getting into this.’

‘I’ll have to do it myself, then.’

‘Oh god! You can’t be serious?’

They stared at each other and Dennis shook his head, his shoulders slumped.

‘Let’s see what we can do.’ He sighed.

Ashton was ordered to not leave the Embassy compound under any circumstances. He received a formal dressing down from the ambassador, who made it quite clear that he was going to stay out of it. Ashton was also given his marching orders; he was to be out of the country in three days. Dennis’s local contacts were sympathetic, but not very helpful. The only information they could give him was that the order for the arrest had come from the presidential palace itself. They didn’t know where Xuan was being held. Tedious reports had to be drawn up and explanations issued; it fell to Ashton to draft them.

By the third evening following her mother’s appearance at the Embassy gate, there was still no news of Xuan. Ashton’s flight had been booked and was scheduled for take-off the next day. He walked out quietly through the Embassy gate. The guard did not stop him. He kept walking till he reached the main road, where he knew there was a police station. He went in, past curious policemen, and stood in front of a desk where a small, thin police sergeant slouched in a chair, reading a local newspaper.

‘I have come to report a crime,’ Ashton announced as loudly and authoritatively as he could manage.

The sergeant flicked him a glance, then went back to reading his newspaper. He did not invite Ashton to take a seat.

‘I have come to report the kidnapping of a young girl by one Ngo Diem,’ Ashton declared, taking the Vietnamese President’s name and raising his voice a notch so that his words would be audible to others.

He heard a gasp from some of the people in the room.

This time, the sergeant shouted something in Vietnamese and two policemen came up on either side of Ashton and grasped him by the arm. The sergeant looked up from his paper and said tiredly, waving his hands to illustrate his point, ‘Mr White Man, go away. Or I arrest.’